


Healing

by shootingforstars



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One, Transformers: Prime
Genre: And at tagging, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Depression, F/M, Heavy Angst, I'm Bad At Summaries, Implied is Probably Too Polite, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Medical Jargon, Other, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, So much angst, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, We just want our medics to be happy, and at pretty much everything, but that's okay, god theres so much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2019-11-16 16:59:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18098432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingforstars/pseuds/shootingforstars
Summary: "I am running out of resources, and I am not sure where I will be able to find another supply; Combaticons seem to be guarding every deposit I see on the scanners. My energon may last me another deca-cycle. This is Eponie. If anyone is out there, send help."





	1. Preface

_ They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die in battle; that the life of a soldier is an honorable one, and that to die in war is good and proper. In the Golden Age, talks of war were rare. We were far more occupied with our technology and colonizations to discuss such things. It wasn’t until the protests started that bloodshed seemed to be the topic on everyone’s minds. I was a medic before the war, and our talents became high demand once the fighting broke out. In the first days of the Great War, there were no definite sides to concern ourselves with. It did not matter who we healed, just that they were laying on our operating tables in dire need of assistance. We didn’t concern ourselves with who was right or wrong, only who was left. Once the factions started forming, however, many of us had to choose a side, often against our will. We became the biggest targets in the field, either to render the enemy defenseless or to strengthen the opposition’s sides. We learned quickly that there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. In war, you will be put down like an animal for someone else’s pleasure.  _

_ I tried to stay neutral for as long as possible, but, in war, lines are often blurred, and it is hard to know who you are fighting for. More often than not, mechs with purple insignias landed on my table, and before long I supposedly joined their ranks. They never branded me, I was never in the field for a brand to be necessary, but the mental branding was all I needed to comply. I knew the risks of abandoning the ranks, I’d treated more than enough traitors to have the images seared into my processor, and my sense of self-preservation was strong enough to follow whatever rules they had for me.  _

_ We lost track of how long we had been fighting, though I could remember every body that laid on my table. I could name each of them, except for the ones who were gone by the time they made it to me. My commanders had me assist with weapons as well. Biological warfare was nothing unexpected, but living with the knowledge of what my creation was capable of was difficult. Every so often, an Autobot would come to me, and I was forced to bring them back from the edge of death just so my superiors could bleed them for more information. Some would beg for me to put them out of their misery, others would swear that they would eventually offline me themselves, and the rare few asked me why I would do this to them. I wasn’t sure I had a choice anymore.  _

_ There were many events that led up to my desertion. I was not properly equipped for combat as the Decepticons had never seen any benefit for their base medic to be weaponized, so I was forced to steal from the corpses that hadn’t been stripped for the armory. I performed the upgrades myself, rather crudely, and escaped during an attack on our base. The Autobots had stormed our operations post after we’d captured one of their own, a scout whose name I couldn’t remember at the time, and in the chaos I was able to slip away. I knew the Decepticons would not be able to track me as my life signal had never been registered on their systems, so my desertion went unnoticed.  _

_ It wasn’t long before I was captured by a squad of Autobot scouts. They must have not expected my surrender, given the amount of weapons drawn on me when I approached them, and they blinded me so I would not be able to give away their location, not that I wanted to. Once they learned to trust me, or at least not want to offline me, I was given a position under their CMO, confined the the base. Work for the Autobots was far less gruesome than my previous position, though I was able to see the full effects of my creations on their people.  _

_ By the time Optimus Prime called for the Great Exodus, I had been promoted to a scout. The Autobots had seen a benefit in my invisibility on scans and my history with the Decepticon forces, and outfitted me with weapons suitable for recognizance missions. My team had been one of the first to leave Cybertron, and one of the first vessels shot down once Megatron learned of the Autobots’ plans. We lost three mechs in the crossfire. We found refuge on Earth once our ship was repaired, having received a transmission from our superiors with orders to protect the vass supply of energon stored there. The Decepticons had Combaticons waiting for us, and I was forced into hiding once they offlined the remaining members of my team.  _

_ Primus knows how long it’s been since then. I continue to search for any sign of my comrades, but it has been difficult to discern an honest signature from the bait laid out by Deceptions. I am running out of resources, and I am not sure where I will be able to find another supply; Combaticons seem to be guarding every deposit I see on the scanners. My energon may last me another deca-cycle.  _

_ This is Epione. If anyone is out there, send help. _

 

End of Transmission 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In Greek mythology, Epione (Greek: Ἠπιόνη) is the goddess of soothing of pain; in fact, her name actually means soothing. She is the wife of Asclepius and mother of Panacea, the goddess of medicines, and Hygieia, the goddess of health. She is probably also considered the mother of the physicians Machaon and Podalirius, who are mentioned in the Iliad of Homer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna apologize in advance

If there is one thing I've learned in my very long life, it is that peace is not the absence of war. Peace only exists when there is harmony, equality. We never had peace to begin with.

Following the expulsion of the Quintessons from our solar system, Cybertron entered a miraculous Golden Age, where the planet was rich in energy and our technology advanced rapidly. Many regarded these years as an "Era of Peace," wherein even the talk of our defeat over the oppressive aliens was rare. In truth, the Council that controlled the planet became power-hungry, as all those who get their first taste of absolute freedom do, and began to manipulate the individuals they promised to serve. They set their optics on the stars, using the space travel technology left behind by the Quintessons to conquer and colonize whatever worlds they could reach. While the civilians celebrated their time of expansion, the Council raped the land. The vast supply of resources the planet had produced in the wake of their Golden Age drastically decreased to almost nothing. Primus seemed to realize their faults before the people could, and he blessed our explorers with the Rust Plague that killed the colonial worlds, which forced space exploration to end before the disease could reach Cybertron.

The Rust Age began under the same Council as the age before. The Council, in their infinite wisdom, put a caste system in place in order to "keep the peace." Really, they were keeping the civilians in their place. This era of "peace" was accented by a growing "industry" of gladiator combat in Kaon. Perhaps the first clue that war was inevitable should have been the lower casts turning to bloodshed just to feel alive. 

I first met Megatron while he was employed in the Kaon energy mines. He had been under my care following a rather severe energy in a gladiator fight centered in Praxus. At the time, his designation had been "D-16", though he called himself "Megatronus." My first hint that he would be trouble, had I not been so young and naive, should have been the name, that of a fallen Prime. He was a visionary as well as a warrior, often speaking of social change and revolution. We came from two very different worlds. I had been forged to an upper caste, given an education, and a career in the Praxus medcentre. He was a miner, so low in his caste that he did not even have a proper designation. While he convinced me that our social systems did indeed need to be changed, I could not support his call for violence. Still, I hung onto every word. 

Wars are often fought for the most petty and foolish reasons; ours was born from Megatron's rejection from the Primes. Enraged that his closest ally, Orion Pax, had been chosen over him, Megatron called his supporters and began open warfare in the street. Our medcentre was the busiest I'd seen it then, I'd lost count of how many injuries I'd fixed, or how many 'bot's I'd seen offline on my table. All his talk of social reform garnered Megatron a large army, primarily of those in the lower castes who identified with his sentiments, and those who hadn't already aligned with the Autobots were forced to join Megatron's Decepticons, lest they face death. When he invaded Praxus, Megatron gave me the choice. In hindsight, I wish I would have chosen the latter. 

Soldiers are often regarded as the winners of a war, often by those who have never partaken in it. The real heroes are the ones who must fix them, both on the battlefield and off. While those on the front lines fight for a cause, their medical officers must fight for their lives. Megatron was as fierce a leader in war as he had been in the fighting arenas in Kaon. Biological warfare was of interest to him. He was ruthless in his punishments as well; too often I had to reattach limbs he'd ripped off for a 'bot being gun-shy. Megatron encouraged violence from his soldiers, no matter who they took that violence out on or how they went about it.  _"Such things are the consequences of war,"_  he'd said,  _"be glad you're still online."_  There were far too many mechs that came across my operating table for me to count, though, if you asked me to, I can remember them each by name (at least, the ones who were conscious enough to tell me their names). I can still see the fading optics of mechs as they let out one last, withering vent when I offline my optics. My stasis hasn't been the same since. 

Kaon had become the headquarters for the Decepticon army and had also become my new base of operations. In either an act of mercy for an old friend or naivety in thinking I did not possess the will to betray him, Megatron never branded me. At first, I'd been concerned that his orders that I be left bare were a sign that I was not long for the world, but it became a blessing when I no longer could look at their insignia without feeling the pang of nausea in my tank. It wasn't until I was cornered by three mechs in my workroom that I understood his true reasoning for keeping me unbranded. I can still hear his voice in my audial receptors:  _"Beauty is a rare virtue nowadays. I'm sure the soldiers will appreciate such a pretty view."_   When I later escaped my shackleless prison and joined the Autobots, I'd feared they had the same process programming as Megatron, at least until they explained the benefit of having a relatively invisible scout. The experiments were the final straw. Megatron's sadistic sidekick, Shockwave, was hell-bent on the idea of creating mechs with the same strength and tenacity as Megatron. A whole army of them, he rationalized, would be unstoppable. Rather than a cold construction, however, Shockwave decided that directly forcing the consciousness of a 'bot into a hand-constructed body was the only way to produce results. He and his scientists tortured their fellow mechs, and it wasn't long until I was forced to aide them. When I'd brought my complaints about the lack of morality in Shockwave's "research" to our commanders, I was warned that I would be the next 'bot on the slab if I continued such acts of insubordination. My servos were made to heal, and they turned me into a butcher. With the knowledge of what these tyrants were capable of doing to others, to  _me_ , I began to plan my escape. 

Megatron brought in his most prized possession after the battle at Tyger Pax, a single Autobot scout. I'd assumed, at least, that he was rather important to the Autobot cause, he must have at least worked rather closely with Optimus Prime himself, as Megatron interrogated him personally. The scout was young, most likely forged at the very beginning of the war, and still had that shine in his optics I had lost so many stellar-cycles before. Each solar-cycle, his screams would echo through the dim passageways of our base, and, each solar cycle, I would pray for Primus to have mercy on one of us and let us offline already. Eventually, the screaming stopped. At least Primus had mercy on someone in this hellscape. A deca-cycle later, our base was attacked by Autobot troops. In the chaos of it all, I managed to slip away. The same forces that had busted down the doors captured me on their journey back to the Autobot base. 

The Autobots were a far more curious and suspicious bunch than I expected them to be. Some accepted my surrender so willingly that it almost made me alarmed for how quickly they'd cave if they were to be interrogated. Megatron probably wouldn't even need to use the shockers on those ones. Most of them regarded me with the same cautiousness you'd show a live bomb. Optimus Prime had evidently recognized me from the very brief moments I'd met him before the war, though our meetings were so inconsequential to me that I embarrassingly could not say the same, and gave me a position working for his medical staff. While I was not given the same workload I had been as the Chief Medical Officer as I had been in the Decepticon ranks, I was certainty kept busy enough to lose more than enough stasis periods. There was a benefit in my branding, or lack thereof, apparently. I was small, though not nearly as small as some of the femmes I'd seen wandering through the medical facility, and fast enough that they decided to put me to work as a scout. I can't say that I was particularly fond of recognizance, but it was far less taxing than battling eons-old mechs who would rather offline than allow a femme to give them a decontamination bath. When Optimus Prime ordered for our forces to flee the planet, I was assigned to one of the first Arks, destined for the planet Earth. 

The Exodus was supposed to be our last-ditch effort to escape the hardships of war on Cybertron. We were foolish to think that war wouldn't find us. Even as we escaped our own battles, the planet we found ourselves on and its inhabitants were engaged in their own. It was a rather small affair, both in size and timespan, and we found them rather adorable as they ran around with their attempts at weapons and mediocre military plans. We watched from afar, of course, as Optimus Prime had told us to stay away from the natives. That is, until Jolt decided to bring us back a “ _present_ ” from his energon scouting run. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all do not want to know the amount of research I have had to do for this chapter alone. God bless the FBI agent that looks at my internet browsing history (esp. my private browser).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jolt's an idiot, Epione doesn't understand humans pt 1 of many

_1978 – Arizona_

_Two years before the incident_

The hardest part of being trapped on an alien planet wasn’t the lack of resources, though that certainly was a problem that needed to be remedied as soon as possible, but was instead having to fight the constant urge to offline my own teammates. Things were easy enough at the very start of our time here; finding energon, almost offlining trying to obtain said energon, watching the locals wander about; but, when the boredom set in, we found ourselves butting helms more often than we’d like to admit. The main source of our agitation seemed to be the youngest mech on our team, Jolt. He was young, inexperienced, and was nauseatingly curious about anything that didn’t fall under the umbrella of his duties. I, being the eldest among my team and the only femme, combined with my background as a CMO for the Decepticons, had so far been his favorite ‘bot to interrogate.

This solar-cycle he was a particularly large pain in my aft, so I’d begged Jazz to send him on a scouting run for a nearby energon source. There were none, I had the scans memorized by now, but Primus help me if I had to deal with his loud venting over my shoulder. I’d been trying to contact our sister ships for days, now that our materials were running low again, and Topspin had crushed his servo in some freak accident that he was too embarrassed to tell me about (probably a challenge from Inferno gone wrong, as always), so my servos were full for the moment. The remnants of the Ark III had been so blissfully silent that I’d almost considered asking Jazz to assign him to every other scouting mission. Maybe I could. What harm could he possibly-

“I’m back!” The sound of his voice echoing through the otherwise silent passageways nearly caused me to break Topspin’s servo in two. The wrecker and I met optics with mirroring agitated faceplates as I stood from his damaged limb and turned to the doors, which opened with a soft _swish_ , as Jolt shuffled into my workroom.

“What took you so long? Did you finally find that secret mine that you’ve been raving about?” Despite the numerous scans I’d run to shut him up, Jolt swore that he’d seen a hidden energon mine on a scouting mission a few solar-cycles back.

Jolt’s servo was hidden behind his hip plate. For a moment, I almost considered the possibility of him having found the mythical energon deposit. “You say that like you think it’s not out there, Ep.” His smirk was suspicious. He normally didn’t smirk like that unless he was about to trick one of us. “I have a present for you, though.”

I raised an eyebrow ridge at that. His last present had been a random sheet of scrap metal he insisted had bullet holes that resembled Optimus Prime (It did not. At all). “What is it?” His faceplate bore an expression that told me he wanted me to guess, and I groaned. “Is it another bomb?”

“No.”

“Rock?”

“No.”

“Native religious object?”

“Not this time, no.”

Topspin spoke up from his place on the berth: “Did you find any high grade?”

I vented sharply, “If he’d found high grade, he wouldn’t be bringing any back for the rest of us.” Jolt almost looked offended by my statement, though it was completely true. The mech consumed enough high grade to sustain an entire squadron. I hadn’t seen him sober even once until we’d arrived on Earth and our supplies had been lost. A low, rumbly laugh sounded from Topspin which only served to offend Jolt more. “Just show us this ‘present,’ Jolt. If you’re going to almost offline us, I’d like to assess the damages.”

“It’s not going to offline you, Ep.” I motioned with my servo for him to hurry. My patience was as thin I could manage it being without strangling him. “I thought you could use a friend.” _Oh, Primus, not another animal_. The last time Jolt had brought me a “friend,” he’d found a native predator. It’d taken me nearly a stellar-cycle to get it out since Jazz demanded I keep it online as to not ‘damage the ecosystem.’ Jolt withdrew his servo and held it out for me to see, and my optics almost offlined from the sight.

A human.

He’d brought us a _human_.

He’d brought a _human_ into our _ship_.

My optics shifted from the small figure in his servo to Jolt’s smiling faceplate with enough frequency to make me dizzy. The human seemed terrified, I could smell the adrenaline wafting from it. I tried to speak, to yell, to berate Jolt for being so fragging _stupid_ , but my vocal processor seemed to glitch. I was going to end him myself, I’m sure Jazz would pardon me for it. I was sure my EM field was radiating the fury pumping through my circuits from the quickness Jolt’s faceplate fell. “Jolt,” the anger was barely contained in my voice, “I’m going to offline my optics. When I online them again, I better not see anything in your servo.” _Whatever is going on here better not be._ I did as I said I would, venting heavily as I prayed my optics were glitching. They weren’t. The human was still there.

“Please don’t yell…”

Don’t yell? Oh, I wasn’t going to _yell_. I was going to _scream_ loud enough to wake the thirteen. “I’ll go get Jazz.” Topspin nearly sprinted from my workroom after he spoke, likely to get away from the incoming electrical storm I was about to release on Jolt’s aft. My servos rose up to cover my faceplate. The urge to rip out Jolt’s circuitry had never been stronger. Topspin returned with Jazz a few nano-kliks later. The lieutenant had always been a patient mech, that much I knew from my rather limited tenure with him, but the pure, unadulterated fury in his EM field as he barked Jolt’s helm off was almost intoxicating.

I’d been forced to take the human to my berth so it wouldn’t be crushed, and I found myself staring at it while I feigned need to complete work. “So, what’s your name.” My armor plating unconsciously tightened _. Primus, it can speak._ “Or, er, do you have a name?” The human looked up at me with some mix of curiosity and fear. When I didn’t answer, it continued to ramble on what I assumed was a designation. “Well I’m Annie. Can you at least tell me where I am?”

“Ark III,” My vocal processor finally fixed whatever glitch had occurred, “an Autobot ship.”

The human, the Annie, seemed confused. “Autobot? What it that? The company that created you?” I wasn’t sure how to answer that. It made a noise of exasperation and stood from its place on my berth, and my pedes moved back defensively. “The big one that took me, he said his name was Jolt. He called you Ep, is that your name?”

“N-no… it’s not. He shortens my designation to save himself time, _apparently_.” I interpreted the expression the human wore as it wanting me to continue. “My designation is Epione.” It made some noise that I interpreted as excitement, paired with what looked like a smile on her faceplate. Though, it wasn’t really a faceplate. It was far too soft and squishy to be one of us. I’d never seen one of them up close, the closest we’d ever come was observing them battling one another from the top of a mountain. What part of ‘watch from afar’ did Jolt not understand? She spoke a different dialect than what we’d heard on our radios as well. How strange. The humans were even smaller than I’d believed, this one was barely the size of my heel struts. It was pale, almost white, and had strange dark appendages that fell around its round faceplate. “Where did you come from?”

“You mean in general or today?” It made a noise, I’m not sure what you would call the noise. Was it in pain? Alarmed? Was it laughing? The expression on its faceplate, if their expressions in any way mirrored ours, leaned towards a laugh. Whatever mix of confusion or concern that I gave it seemed to cause some alarm, though, because it suddenly began to stutter as it spoke again. “I, uh, was on the way to work when, uh, came across… Jerk, was it?”

How you could forget the designation of a creature nearly forty times the size of you, I’ll never know. “Jolt.”

The Annie nodded. “ _Jolt!_ Yes! _Fuck_ , how did I forget that?”

_“Fuck?”_

_“Oh my god,”_ The Annie’s expression morphed into one of horror as she brought her servos over her faceplate and looked up to me with wide optics, “oh, _God_ , I’m meeting an _alien species_ and the first thing I do is _curse?_   _Christ_ , what is wrong with me?”

I knelt in front of the human to observe it closer. It seemed to be in distress, though it was hard to tell from the adrenaline wafting from it. “I assume that this word _… ‘fuck?’…_ is an expletive of some sort?” It nodded. “And that you are… _embarrassed_ … to have said it?” It nodded again. _Primus, this would be easier if it had a field to read._ I vented as a sharp laugh rolled past my glossa, which seemed to alarm the human. “Believe me, I have heard enough expletives in my day. Yours are nothing new.”

The Annie seemed to be somewhat relieved from my statement, so I stood to continue with the pointless work I had managed to find. It was a menial task, but it would need to get done eventually, and Jazz was still lecturing Jolt from what my audial receptors picked up, so there was no better time than now. I could sense that the Annie was watching me work, though she stayed silent. “What exactly _are_ you?” The question came almost ten cycles later, and I’d nearly toppled over from the surprise. My reflexes weren’t what they used to be, but I did manage to catch myself on the berth beside the Annie. _“Oops… sorry…_ ”

My kneeling position was much closer to the human than I’d been before. I could see every detail of her fleshy body from here. I’d wondered briefly if she was a complex spy sent from the Decepticons to learn our information, but I’d seen Decepticon technology in person, and there was no way those beasts could be advanced enough to create this. They could have coerced the human to comply, but the shock on her faceplate seemed genuine enough to reason that she had never seen one of our kind before. I didn’t bother to move away as I answered the human, a part of me wanted to get a closer look at it. “I am an Autobot.”

“Are you a girl? I mean, I assumed you were, because of your,“ the Annie gestured to my form with a servo, “everything. But I don’t know how your… species differs between men and women.”

A girl? Must be what the humans call the females of their species. “I am a female, the only one in this outfit.”

“ _Outfit_? What are you, military?”

If the human was a spy, perhaps a less direct answer would be best. It would surely press for more delicate information if it were trying to expose us. “Of sorts. We came here after the war decimated our home planet. We are all soldiers, though we each have duties to fulfill.”

The Annie’s helm tilted to the side in what I assumed was confusion. “What’s your ‘duty’?”

I debated how to respond. I was many things, too many things to count. Communications, medical services, scouting, I did it all. “A medic,” was what I chose to focus on. A possible spy, if they should know anything at all, should know the least important information you can provide. “What are you?”

The Annie seemed to respond, but the soft noise of my door paneling opening halted its reply. Inferno stood in the threshold, evidently woken from his stasis nap from Jazz’s rampage, and motioned for us to follow him. I held a servo out for the human to climb onto. Its body was nearly the size of my shortest digit, which it clung to as I followed Inferno to the common room. Topspin leaned against the wall nearest to the exit with his arms crossed, his mangled servo barely poking out of the thick armor plating that lined his protoform. I’d have to fix that once we got this situation handled. Jolt sat at the single table that sat in the center of the room, the first time that thing had been used for anything since our high grade ran out, his helm drooping towards his servos. His field was clammed as close to his plating as he could manage, though I could imagine the embarrassment that must have coated it. Jazz stood beside the sitting mech, facing him. While Jolt’s field was clenched so tight I could barely feel it, Jazz almost made a point to stretch his as far as he could manage. He was agitated, that much was obvious even without the field, but the amount of anger radiating off him made my armor hug my form closer.

The lieutenant motioned for me to set down the Annie on the table before him, and he observed it so closely that it almost seemed that he was about to eat it. After a moment, he ex-vented, “Your designation is Annie, correct?” The Annie nodded to confirm his statement, and Jazz continued. “Well, Annie, I’m afraid that you’ll have to be staying with us for a little while.” Excuse me, what?

“I’m sorry,” the Annie seemed agitated, “but I have to go home. I have a job, a family, I can’t just hang out with a bunch of… whatever you all are!” Its servos waved in the air as it spoke. It was rather adorable when it was agitated. “Look, I won’t tell anyone about what happened today, but please let me go home.”

Jazz was obviously not pleased with the arrangement either, his field showed pity for the creature. “I don’t want to keep you from your life, but this is a matter of your security as well as ours. Until we are sure that it will be safe for you to return, you must stay here under our supervision.” Something like this would have to be reported to Command, if they would ever answer. Contacting them would be my duty, most likely, and Jolt would be tasked with watching the Annie. Or perhaps Topspin would be asked to supervise it, he was far more responsible than the young mech could ever be. “You’ll be watched over by Epione, here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School and work have been kicking my ass, so that is what took so long for this chapter to get written. Between midterms and working until 1am every night, I havent had the time to write. But my Spring Break is next week, so hopefully I'll be able to get another chapter out to make up for me being inconsistent.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been rewriting this story over the span of three years. It has gone through too many reincarnations for me to remember, and at least six character changes. I'm losing my mind over here. I'm sorry this is a short chapter but I really just needed to get this out so I can have motivation to write. It'll get better, hopefully... probably not.


End file.
